Everyone should feel shame at coercing a person who would otherwise not have sex with them into having sex with them. Buying someone's labor is different than buying their bodily autonomy and consent to sex.
This isnt rape, it's just paying for an exchange. If a person doesn't want to use their body, they're free not to. Manual labor also involves using your body with wear and tear, it's not that different or special.
Regulated prostitution may be bad in your eyes but unregulated prostitution is even worse for those who are already in this industry.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
The conclusion is that it is an immoral act to visit a prostitute. And that's all you need to know really.
Oh and here's another dirty little secret for you: a good percentage of the customers do it exactly because they LIKE the rapey aspect of it. The world is a darker place than you may prefer to believe.
I'm sure the owners would be happy to provide background checks for all employees, if it gets the police out of their business.
And there are thousands of former sex workers that will give you an earful about what you think you know about prostitution and what prostitutes think.
They also have a tendency to wish that people who didn't want to be in their line of work didn't have to be in their line of work. So why not actually try to solve that problem - reach out to individuals, listen to them, and help them achieve their goals - instead of trying to tell people what they want and don't want? The only reason I can think of is that that doesn't allow you to force your morality on people.
I do. I reach out to would-be purchasers of sex and those who would defend them, and point out the dire consequences of their approach. Economic transfer doesn't suddenly make rape something one should aspire to or tolerate.
Edit: Specifically, if the goal is to help sex workers who want help, the solution is... to help sex workers who want help. It's to perform research into the barriers to seeking help, and try to remove those barriers. It's not to prevent consensual trade between a person who has few issues with their job, and someone seeking their services.
If, on the other hand, the goal is to eradicate sex work against the wishes of those sex workers for reasons of morality, punishing people who participate in it is a wonderful idea.
Which rights does consensual sex work curtail?
This isn't really an opt-out right; surely there are people who would "consent" to situations of slavery or apartheid. This doesn't mean we should make those things legal.
If you want to disambiguate it from sex, consider whether someone should be able to sell (and thus another person to buy) an organ.
Then consider that the demand for purchasing sex massively outstrips the demand for purchasing organs.
Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.
Literally thousands upon thousands of current and former prostitutes disagree.
The solution is not to make sex work illegal, or to make seeking it illegal. It's to help the people who don't want to be performing sex work. It's to give them food, and shelter, and training to re-enter the job market. But that's expensive, and it's difficult to explain to people with Christian moralities about sex why you'd allow people to perform sex work if they wanted to.
A while ago I spent quite some time researching the prostitution thing, trying to make up my mind about it. I remember the UN report on global trafficking[1] being specially enlightening. The conclusions I took from it:
-Prohibition doesn't work. It just drives the prostitution underground, and as the pimps are already doing something illegal they don't mind going the extra mile, make it straightforward slavery and abuse the women so much than they are too terrified to escape. A small country (like Sweden) can offload the prostitution to nearby countries, but if all Europe were to do that the consequences would probably be really dire for a lot of women.
-Full legality increases human trafficking. As there is a lot of legal prostitution going on, it's easier to get away with the trafficking. In Europe usually takes the shape of organized crime importing awful lot of women from western Europe to Holland and Germany. Long term, it's thought to increase the well being of prostitutes, both imported and local, but we still have to grok how to do it without make it without the traffic.
-Not legal nor illegal. This is the situation in most countries, and the implementations vary wildly. In some countries the police does not intervene at all and it's a cesspool of mafias fighting for control, others make it a tourist attraction, while others haven't made it legal but don't prosecute the prostitutes. Curiously enough, this last approach is the one that gets the best results at stopping exploitative human trafficking as long as pimping is really prosecuted, don't remember anyone really explaining why. My guess is that in this situation large scale trafficking operations stand out much more, but who knows.
TL;DR; It's hard. Swedes are a tiny bit hypocrites in this one.
[1] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/global-repor...
It's extremely difficult to stop gangsters from trafficking because they operate in the trafficked persons home country as well, so if you run to the police in Germany or Canada they can seek retribution on your family members back home in Ukraine, Vietnam ect. Thus the not legal nor illegal does a good balance of preventing super brothels opening up full of imported sex workers while at the same time being able to arrest pimps without relying on the testimony of the sex workers.
Yes, because people who purchase sex are a scourge to women everywhere.
Defending pimps and johns while calling anti-prostitution activists "sleazy slimeballs." I love it.
That is basically making things up.
Don't go thinking there is a silver bullet here, all solutions somewhat suck.
Sorry to break the news to you: all clients are ugly clients, since they're all just fine with the idea that people's bodies are something to be bought and sold.
Also, I assume you don't actually mean bodies, as that would imply you're similarly against non-sexual modelling, acting, etc etc, where people employ people directly for their bodies, to varying degrees.
This isn't germane to the issue, which is that purchasing sex is a reprehensible act. However, there is indeed a strong strain of anti-capitalist thought in radical feminism; it surprises me that you don't know this.
> Also, I assume you don't actually mean bodies, as that would imply you're similarly against non-sexual modelling, acting, etc etc, where people employ people directly for their bodies, to varying degrees.
I meant literally their bodies, not images of their bodies, or actions that their bodies perform. I meant direct access to their mouths, rectums, vaginas for the purpose of sexual gratification. I suppose if purchasing that kind of access had other purposes besides sexual gratification, "sex" wouldn't seem like such a special case.
I moderate a handful of self-titled "social justice warrior" chatrooms, which are full of everyone from libertarian socialists to anarcho-communists. I'm reasonably aware of various strands of feminism. I've been having a discussion on the morality of sex work for much of today.
Sex work is immoral for the same reasons other work is immoral. It's not a special case, and shouldn't really be treated much differently. If you want to protect the sex worker from the necessity of performing their work, you should be similarly protecting the minimum wage retail clerk from the necessity of performing their work. Neither is worse than the other, and they have similar solutions.
Even under capitalism, purchasing e.g. food for your family that was somehow acquired under coercive circumstances is still less shameful than purchasing e.g. diamonds that were somehow acquired under coercive circumstances. What you're purchasing matters; it's not all the same.
The solution is to get rid of the system which is coercive. It's not to tell everybody who ever wanted to buy a television not to within the context of capitalism.
The purchase of sex inherently demeans and degrades another human being because it places one's own sexual gratification over another person's bodily autonomy.
I'm a contractor, and I get to choose my clients. If I don't want to work with someone, I don't. Why would it be "inherently" demeaning in sex work, if they got to choose their clients and there were better protection and regulation?
Why is it an implementation issue with your TV purchase, and an inherent issue with sex work? I don't follow the logic.
TL;DR no prostitute can "choose" a john that isn't going to sexually exploit her (and thus violate her human rights) because that's the nature of purchasing sex.
A direct quote TL;DR
Does the 'right to prostitute' exist?' Clearly prostitution cannot exist as a right because it usurps and negates already established human rights of the prostitute woman to human dignity, bodily integrity, physical and mental well-being...Human rights are universal and inalienable. They cannot be reduced to the instrumentality of individual choice alone because individual choice can and does include the right to harm or propagate harm on others or inflict harm on oneself.
There are people in the sex industry who enjoy their industry. There were no people on the receiving end of the holocaust who enjoyed that.
If you can't grasp the difference you should not try to discuss anything.
You think prostitution is not a violation of human rights. I do. It's pretty much that simple. But clearly what specific individuals used to think about freedom from slavery, or the right of Jewish people to exist, or the right to basic dignity and access to food and livelihood, has no bearing on whether or not these things are human rights. They just are.
It's morally acceptable to sell a service but not to purchase it? That's asinine.
The "economic transaction" model is in almost all cases a fig leaf for the abuse of women, even in jurisdictions where prostitution has been legalized or decriminalized.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/i-clutche...
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdf/Prostitutionin9Count...
"Just-so stories," k bud. Tell yourself whatever lies you need to in order to condone johns and pimps; I can't stop you.
Coerced sex is rape, however. It is qualitatively different from coerced labor. As Dworkin wrote a long time ago, "in prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women's bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the beginning of it. It's impossible. And no woman gets whole again later, after."
I think the actual moral problem with commercial sex is that it commodifies something that some people see as sacred. I think it turns on one's view of government as moral guardian vs individual liberty. Governments aren't usually very good moral actors, which is why we usually limit their moral policing.
But don't take my word for it, take former sex workers' word for it: http://www.educating-voices.com
This is feminism 101 stuff; even if you want to take the "choice feminism" side of the debate, you need to learn the basics of radical feminist critiques and positions on the issue.
This means that monetary exchange precludes free choice. This is independent of what is being exchanged, as you say it.
Instead of trying to wordplay this in HN comments, why don't you take a look at https://www.demandabolition.org/resources/evidence-against-l... -- they've done a far better job than I ever could on lining up the different arguments -- and there are many! -- against blithely skipping into legalized or even decriminalized prostitution. If none stick, then certainly nothing I say in this discussion will have any effect.
This sentence has structurally the same form. If you think it's ridiculous, it can only be because you think there is something special about sex - i.e. it is sacred in some way. And thus your position actually doesn't relate to free will.
I think you're very confused. Your statements aren't logically consistent and I have to make guesses and leaps of dodgy inference to make any sense of them at all.
I believe you have a prior position on the morality of prostitution and are using arguments you don't understand to defend the position. I think a different tack would be wiser.
> As Dworkin wrote a long time ago, "in prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women's bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the beginning of it. It's impossible. And no woman gets whole again later, after."
I feel like the Dworkin quote is more the basis of their argument, that the human body itself is different to other external objects, and selling your own body is different to selling something external.
In that context, comparing selling fruit to selling your own body doesn't seem like a fair comparison.
That said, I know a couple of people in this industry, none of them are particularly fond of their work, but they don't seem any more unhappy than anyone else in a job they don't particularly like. shrug
And in the end there's a qualitative difference between purchasing access to a person's time and labor, and purchasing access to their mouth, vagina, and anus.
The authors at http://www.feministcurrent.com/?s=prostitution would universally guffaw at your misdirection towards religion. This is about patriarchal oppression of women, all gussied up in the same neoliberal language that has proven itself unmeritorious in other public spheres.
So as a gay man, it would be highly immoral for me to have sex with a prostitute whom is a bottom, but renting the services of a top for the night would be totally fine. Am I interpreting you correctly (not that I have, or plan on, engaging the services of sex workers. Not really my scene.)?
I currently hold very different views from you on this issue, but some of your arguments are certainly giving me some things to think about. They all seem to assume the above point, which I have a really hard time accepting.
Not at all, it's also immoral to purchase assassinations and many other things both illegal and legal. They're not germane to the question of prostitution though.
Prostitution is qualitatively different than other "services" or even non-prostitution sex work (phone sex operator, erotic fiction writer, even some pornography) because it involves purchasing direct access to and use of the prostituted person's body. That is the problem with prostitution, not the fact that it's about sex per se.
It's simply a matter of the human condition that the (male) sex drive is the most common thing that, when left unexamined and unchecked, results in such a system where people's bodies are reduced to the objects of economic transaction.
I've probably burned enough internet points on this thread, but if you want to read far better-researched and better-stated writing on this subject than mine, http://www.feministcurrent.com/category/prostitution-2/ is a good place to start. It's a shame that religious and social conservative voices are often the only ones being represented and considered on this subject. It's a shame that men on the left and atheist men should feel deeply.
By this argument, paid work is slavery.
I suppose in a society where women were free of patriarchy and rape culture, and had full reproductive and sexual autonomy, then Dworkin's statement wouldn't even apply to women.
But that society is a fantasy, and I doubt any capitalist society could ever free women from economic exploitation of their bodies by others.
If someone only consents to cleaning a house if they're paid enough money to do it that isn't "without their consent" by any definition of the word I'm aware of. It's unclear to me why sex workers should be specially called out and stigmatized.
What about marriage between a very rich and a very poor person, or between a citizen and a non-citizen?
What about being paid for doing drug trials? Isn't that coercion of poor people? Should this be legal?
Marriages usually involve many other things than sex-for-resources; it is certainly possible for economic coercion to be an aspect of marriage. It is not the defining feature of the institution, however.
Drug trials are not a more socially tolerated form of rape so they are not really relevant here.
How are drug trial not a form of "rape"? They are not sexual, but you are exposing your body to potential damage in exchange for money. I really don't see how that's different than prostitution, in fact I'll argue that it is worse (we can make prostition less risky, we cannot eliminate risk from drug trial).
Some people absolutely have been getting married to be able to get out of poverty, and in my book this is worse than prostitution in the sense that not only do those people have to have sex with their " client", but they also have to live with them and probably do other work such has cleaning and cooking. At least with prostitution, the contract is clearer, there are negotiated limits on what is provided for the money. I'll argue that if society had less hangups about prostitution, they'd be less of those economical marriages.
If you think that drug trial for money is more acceptable than sex for money, I think you should have a little introspection about your attitude towards sex.
I think that very much like dangerous drugs and cigarette smoking, attacking the demand side of this issue will be more effective than outright prohibition.
> How are drug trial not a form of "rape"? They are not sexual...
... that's how they're not a form of "rape," then.
> Some people absolutely have been getting married to be able to get out of poverty, and in my book this is worse than prostitution in the sense that not only do those people have to have sex with their " client", but they also have to live with them and probably do other work such has cleaning and cooking.
Yes, that's a terrible situation as well, but it has nothing to do with how reprehensible it is to purchase sex from a prostitute.
> At least with prostitution, the contract is clearer, there are negotiated limits on what is provided for the money. I'll argue that if society had less hangups about prostitution, they'd be less of those economical marriages.
I'd argue that if a person--OK, let's call a spade a spade, a man--didn't think that their own personal and sexual gratification was more important than someone else's--OK, another spade a spade, a woman's--bodily autonomy, then there'd be both less prostitution and fewer of those marriages. And less rape, and less domestic violence, and less misery overall. But this involves convincing men to introspect about their own privilege vis-a-vis personal and sexual gratification, so it won't happen.
> If you think that drug trial for money is more acceptable than sex for money, I think you should have a little introspection about your attitude towards sex.
The danger to people participating in drug trials is far, far less than the danger to people participating in prostitution. One merely needs to look at the comparative mortality rates to ascertain that.
If you take "morality" out of the picture, there is no difference, one is selling a one time sexual act for a negotiated amount, the other is selling a lifetime of sex + work for food and shelter. Both are economical deals. The difference is purely the spin one's willing to put on them, in other word, opinions, we obviously disagree, no point arguing further.
> if a man didn't think that their own personal and sexual gratification was more important than a woman's bodily autonomy
What you describe is rape, where there is no consent. If two adults agree to have sex, society should not be concerned on why, and not interfere.
Different people have different level of hormones and sexual needs. Saying things like "people should be less sexual" is not going to solve any problem.
> The danger to people participating in drug trials is far, far less than the danger to people participating in prostitution.
Because society has made prostitution illegal and is not giving the same level of protection to prostitutes as to other citizens. Prostitution should be regulated and made safe.
Who said anything like that? All I'm saying is that people should not exploit other people for sex. If they do, then they should feel ashamed. The rest of us should not feel impelled to defend people that do exploit other people for sex, whether they use violence or economic disadvantage to do so.
> Because society has made prostitution illegal and is not giving the same level of protection to prostitutes as to other citizens. Prostitution should be regulated and made safe.
That's just not true; even in countries which have decriminalized or legalized prostitution, a prostitute's life is much more fraught with peril than people participating in drug trials.
What really matters is the safety of the person(s) involved. And yet, there are plenty of occupations where safety is in question.
The question is whether or not we want to be a society that views people's bodies and sexual access to them as a commodity to be bought and sold. I find it baffling that anyone would laud this condition after giving it a few moments of compassionate reflection.
It's all well and good to say that it's against your own morals, but as soon as you start defending that on the basis of the consequences, you're conceding the "but it's just morally wrong!" argument. And in general, we (okay, at least I, as I can believe that you wouldn't necessarily agree here) laud societies that have transitioned from deontological to consequentialist ethics.
If you want to get all academic about it, I am coming from a position of virtue ethics, which is why I am focused on the vicious men who purchase sex, and to a lesser extent other people who are explicitly or implicitly defending those men's actions.
And all the more if it's a billion prostitutes in an eternity of misery supported by a malevolent AI!
Alternatively, Alice could consider the possibility that Bob is not, in fact, an idiot.
And wouldn't autonomy include the freedom to do with your body as you see fit?
If it were about freedom, you would see people of all economic conditions choosing to prostitute themselves. But you don't.
"People who see prostitution as something which exists on a number of different, exclusive and distinct class-related levels are people who do not understand the interrelated nature of it, and some of the people ignorant of the shifting nature of prostitution are actually prostitutes and prostitutors themselves."
Sounds awful paternalistic. Have you considered the possibility that people who make choices you disagree with have agency?
Once again, if only for the peanut gallery: you are asserting that no sex workers have agency in the matter of their employment. Yes or no?